


The Ocean is Hella Big

by Paperback_Writer



Series: Where the Land Meets the Sea [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: College/Uni AU, Fluff, John's a Mermaid, M/M, Mermaid Au!, Or merman, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paperback_Writer/pseuds/Paperback_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider and holy hell what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?</p><p>Mermaids, Shitty romances, and college should never exist in the same life. But fuck, You're a Strider and the laws of life don't apply to you. </p><p>Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mermaids are Real and my Fifth Grade Teacher was Wrong as Shit

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by pankakegirf's 'Trapped in a Tank', which I think is seriously worth a read! 
> 
> First attempt at a Multi Chapter fic so.

Your name is Dave Strider and holy hell what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?

The day started out the same as literally every other day. You woke up at around one in the afternoon, fell out of bed and scrambled to get dressed. After briefly staring at the totally un-used comb on your bedside table and running your hand through your hair, you deemed your hair brushed and sprinted off to class, which started approximately five minutes before you woke up. 

You burst into the hall, take your seat at the back of the lecture hall and call out ‘HERE’ just before the Professor read out your name. Having the last name ‘Strider’ had advantages, one of them being that you were relatively low on the register. This came in handy a number of times, especially when your bio professor was a condescending bitch and insisted on doing the whole roll call like you were in fucking fifth grade or some shit. 

As usual she glared daggers in your direction, made her way through some shittily pronounced asian names (“It’s pronounced ‘ Woo Shao Hwah’, ma’am”), and started the lecture. You opened your note book and started to absently make notes. 

It occurred to you briefly that this past two years started because of how hilarious you thought it’d be if you ‘ironically’ did really well in your science classes, ‘ironically’ get into a world class college and ‘ironically’ take marine biology as your major. Now, you were not-so-ironically enjoying the fuck out of this subject. 

“I mean,” you’d constantly say to your elder brother over skype chats, “The ocean’s hella big, and there are a shit tonne of different things that live in it. How could you not find that awesome as hell?” He’d normally shake his head and call you a nerd. 

So you paid attention to the lecture, making thoughtful notes and asking thoughtful questions that frankly would have totally astounded your middle school teachers. They really hated you. 

“So, to conclude,” she said, a couple minutes after the class officially ended, “Get out of my lecture hall and I mean what I said about that essay. Ten pages by the end of the week.” There was a collective groan, followed by scraping chairs. You were out of the hall before anyone got a chance to talk to you. It wasn’t that you hated people, you just generally had a hard time talking to them. Plus, you were the textbook definition of an introvert. You managed to cover this up with shitty rambles and a cool kid persona, but really your attitude to people could be summed up with one word; ‘fuck.’ It wasn’t like you had no friends, though. Normally you spent time in between classes with Dirk the Senior, and his hot as fuck (you totally didn’t think that) boyfriend, Jake. Unfortunately, Dirk was working part time at an animal rehabilitation facility, which you found hilarious. The idea of Dirk spreading awareness about endangered species was two parts ridiculous, one part alarming, because he’d already been fired from the aquarium for telling small children that barracudas will ‘Fuck you up.” 

So you spent a lot of time with Jake, who was nice enough, but you could tell everything he said was in a forced attempt to be friends with his boyfriend’s friends. But you didn’t need them, you totally had other friends. Lets see, there was Terezi, a blind girl majoring in law, and Karkat, an unusually angry guy who was majoring in film studies. They were both two years younger than you, though. Plus, they were totally hot for each other. It was like awkwardly third wheeling for your little sister, hanging out with those two together. And then there was Jade. Jade was a whole other can of worms. You two had dated on and off for a couple months before you figured out you were straight as Merida’s hair. That is to say, not at all. She’d been cool about it, and now you two were fairly good friends. 

You hadn’t dated anyone after that. 

But other than your small posse of nearly-friends, people sucked. In your book, there was nothing worse than a crowded party, except a crowded party with literally no booze. Without the booze, you just had to put up with people. 

After your classes finished for the day, you did what you always did; head for the small beach near the college. It wasn’t a public beach, and you had to scramble down a sheer rock face to get to it, which made it perfect for you. Nobody else came there, except the occasional couple to make out for a while. It was also, strictly speaking, totally against school rules because it was dangerous or some shit. But whatever. Anything for some alone time. 

You slid your way down onto the thin strip of shockingly white sand, kicking off your shoes so they stayed clean and didn’t have sand in them for the next 30 months. You shuffled your toes into the sand, breathing a small sigh of relief. Through the tinted shades, you saw the sun starting to dip below the expanse of endless water. You had a feeling you wouldn’t be able to spend much time down here; getting back to campus was always harder in the dark, especially with the shades on. And there was no way you were taking them off. Period. You turned to walk a little ways down the beach, but you stopped short. There was someone else here. Someone else on your beach. You sighed a little and nearly turned to go, but something else hit you. 

Whoever they were, they were lying down. Their lower half was obscured by the ocean. They were just lying on their side, facing away from you, not caring that the ocean was slowly swallowing their body.  
“Hey,” you called out after a short pause. Nothing.  
“Hey!” you called out, a little louder. Still nothing. You started making your way over to them, and you slowly noticed things. Glasses lying a little way aways from his head, his lack of a shirt, but most worryingly, the red in the water around his legs. You started running, suddenly very worried about this total stranger. You dropped to his side, noticing how skinny and small he was. His chest was barely moving, and he was clearly breathing through his mouth.  
“Hey, hey c’mon,” you whispered, shaking his shoulder a little. He just lamely shook. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit he’s going to die he’s going to fucking die. You grabbed your phone out of your pocket, hands shaking, ready to dial an ambulance. 

Then you looked down to where his legs should be, and realised that was very much something you should NOT do. 

There weren’t any legs. Instead was a tail, a beautiful, huge, long tail with shimmering scales, ranging from baby blue to electric blue to the colour of the sky just before a storm. There were long gashes from god knows what up and down the You looked back up at his face, noticing thin blue lines on his neck.  
“Gills?” you whispered, mostly to yourself. It hit you slowly, like a car crash being played at a quarter of its real time speed. 

The kid was a mermaid. 

You knew exactly what to do. You pressed ‘5’ (of course you had him on speed dial) and tried to see what else was wrong with the kid. He looked like he’d hit his head pretty hard, there was a nice blue-black bruise coming in just above his left eye. You quickly lifted up your shades to get a better look, instantly finding the fishing line knotted around his neck and upper body. After a couple dozen rings, Dirk finally picked up.  
“Hello?” he said, sighing a little.  
“Mermaids are real, Mrs. Matherson was totally fucking wrong, I found one, he’s pretty beat up,” you said, slotting the phone between your shoulder and ear. This freed your hands to try and do something about the fishing line.  
“What?” Dirk asked after a brief pause. You growled a little.  
“There is a kid with a fucking fish tail washed up on this dumb beach and he’s bleeding what do I do?” you said, a lot slower than the first time. You gently start tugging on the fishing line, trying not to accidentally tighten it around his neck. That would be bad. There’s a long silence from Dirk.  
“Okay. Okay if you’re making this up,” he starts, slowly.  
“I’m not!” you hiss, managing to make some headway with the line.  
“Yeah but if you are you owe me two hundred bucks. Bring the kid around to the rehabilitation centre. There’s a tank here that nobody cares about.” He hung up before you could ask how the fuck you’d get him there. You sighed, finally managing to free him from the stupid line. Fishing has got to be the single stupidest sport known to fucking man kind. Well, probably not, but that stupid fishing line really pissed you off. He was breathing a little easier now, though. Dave: 1, Fishing-line: 0. 

You gently turned the boy over so he was on his back, and were struck for the first time by how utterly, undeniably, unchangeably adorable he was. 

Shit

Remembering suddenly that he was bleeding out before your very eyes, you managed to scoop him up. He was a lot lighter than he looked, and a lot colder. You awkwardly made your way to your feet, lurching a little, and started off down the beach. You quickly turned back, awkwardly managing to pick up the glasses, and headed back down the beach. 

About halfway to the centre, he stirred a little in your arms. Not quite enough for you to notice. A short while later, he shifted again, slightly more aggressively. You looked down, and your eyes met his. Fuck, he was terrified. Eyes the size of dinner plates. Then, he started straight up thrashing around, flailing wildly to get out of your grip. It almost worked, too.  
“Hey, hey hey hey, calm down,” you said, quietly, “calm down. You’re hurt, I can help, okay? I’m not gonna hurt you. Promise.” God he probably didn’t speak the same language, it was probably some dolphin shit in a secret dolphin language. But then he looked up at you, blinking a lot.  
“Nobody can know,” he said, after a brief pause, “nobody can know.” You nodded, like you know what he’s talking about.  
“Nobody’s gonna know,” you said, and he relaxed, snaking his arms loosely around your neck. You felt something flutter quietly in your stomach at the contact. 

Fuck.


	2. Same Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave and John actually talk. 
> 
> Nerds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thanks for the reaction to the first chapter! I definitely won't be able to keep going at this rate (school starts soon), but I'll try and post a chapter fairly regularly.

“What. The fuck. Is that?” Dirk’s stupid anime glasses made it impossible to tell what he was staring at, but you had a pretty good idea.  
“I told you. Mermaid,” you said impatiently, “Now let me in.”

It was necessary for you to take the back way, because A) it was quicker, and B) people would be less likely to see you. The centre was more than a little run down, but it had medical stuff, and you assumed it had the things you needed to do...whatever it was you planned on doing. It was a kind of open-air type thing, with a lot of tanks under huge canopies. The canopy area was pretty much off limits to the public; this is where the seals wrapped in fishing nets and the turtles with their heads stuck in six-pack holders and things came. Gruesome shit that folk didn’t really want to see. The education-y area where kindergarden kids came on field trips and shit was a concrete box, air conditioned and colourful. You just hoped that the tank was out of the way enough from the staff. Like the kid said; nobody could no. He’d be dissected and studied for science or something. 

Dirk sighed, pulling out a key and unlocking the gate, mumbling something about an easy two hundred dollars lost. You scowled a little and awkwardly shuffled in sideways, trying not to hit the kids head. Again. 

You set him down on a table that was more than a little too small for him, his head and the end of his tail just sort of hung off each end. He groaned a little, mumbling something totally inaudible and curling up on his side like a cat. You snorted, pushing him back over so he was on his back. 

“So now you’re here, what do you plan on doing?” Dirk said, locking the gate and leaning against that. You looked up suddenly.  
“What do I plan on doing?” you asked, “You work here, what do YOU plan on doing?”  
“He’s YOUR mer-boyfriend,” Dirk said accusingly, taking a step forward, “so YOU fix him.”  
“He’s not my boyfriend, I found him dying on a strip of sand, so technically-” you start.  
“Yeah, YOUR problem, YOU fix it.”  
“Dude, c’mon. The kid’ll bleed to death while we’re still arguing, and YOU actually know what you're doing,” you said, exasperated. He just crossed his arms. You sighed.  
“Do this one thing, and I’ll buy you lunch for a month,” you said. He pushed himself off the fence.  
“Deal.” 

He pulled out a box of medical supplies and set them down near the table. You pulled up a nearby chair and sat down next to him.  
“Quick, just do it before he wakes up,” you hissed. The kid clearly didn’t trust people, and you weren’t sure how he’d feel if someone was near his gaping, painful wounds with needles and injections and stuff.  
“Do what before who wakes up?” came a groggy, slightly strained voice. You both froze. You slowly turned your head, and your worst fears were confirmed. He’d propped himself up on his elbows, squinting a little. Adorable.  
“Uh... We uh...” you stuttered. You heard Dirk sigh a little. There was a long, awkward pause. You remembered you still had his ridiculously thick glasses in your hands. Damn, his eyes were probably shit.  
“These are yours” you finally managed to get out. You held the glasses out to him, trying to stay cool. He took them, pushing them onto his face and blinking a bit. He looked at you, panic in his eyes, which faded into simple recognition. Then he saw Dirk, and his face fell a thousand feet into a fiery pit.  
“You said nobody would know,” he said, a little angrily.  
“Yeah, this guy’s nobody,” you said, sitting back down and trying to act cool. He huffed, clearly not buying it. There was another awkward pause. 

“Okay, Flounder,” Dirk said, finally, “Here’s the plan. I’m gonna clean up these wounds and shit, and then I’m gonna give you some like, anaesthetic. It’s gonna make your tail go numb and it’s totally normal and-”  
“I know,” the kid said, cutting him off. Dirk looked up.  
“You what?”  
“I know what anaesthetic is. We have it,” he said, annoyance lining his words. It came as a slight surprise to you that there were others, like, other mermaids out there. But you supposed that it seemed logical. Dirk, on the other hand, was blatantly shocked.  
“You what?” he said again, simply. The kid just shrugged.  
“We’re not animals.” Dirk exchanged a quick look with you.  
“Well okay then,” he said, and stuck the needle into his tail. He flinched. A little. 

There was a long, awkward silence while Dirk stitched this kid up. Who was he, anyway?  
“You got a name?” you said finally. He looked up at you, a little surprised.  
“Why do you care?” he asked, suspiciously. You just shrugged.  
“You’re gonna be here until the stitches come out, so that’s like, one or two weeks. Might as well get to know you,” you said. He breathed out heavily.  
“I’m Dave,” you offered, after another long-ish pause.  
“John,” he said haughtily.  
“You got a last name?” you asked, just trying to fill the silence with noise. He refused to say anything.  
“Look man, I’m just trying to-” you started, but he cut you off.  
“Don’t,” he snapped. There was a long awkward pause, punctuated by Dirk’s muffled laughter. You shrugged, leaning back. He sighed after a while.  
“Look,” he said, softly, “I'm not trying to be a dick. It’s just, talking to you is sorta punishable by death.” Your eyebrows knitted together in confusion.  
“Talking to me is punishable by death,” you repeated, not quite comprehending it. He waved his hand dismissively.  
“Talking to humans,” he said. You weren’t any less confused.  
“Why?” you asked, leaning forward a little. He just shrugged.  
“Questioning it’s also sorta punishable by death,” he said. Your eyebrows went up.  
“Seriously?”  
“Seriously.” You puffed out your cheeks.  
“Hey, no offense man, but being a mermaid sounds pretty shitty,” you said, leaning back into the chair. He laughed a little, and your stomach did somersaults.  
“Yeah, it kinda sucks,” he said, grinning a little, “but being a human looks pretty cool.”  
“Nah,” you said, and he looked over in surprise.  
“Why not? I mean, you’ve not got a weird dictatorial figurehead or anything,” he said, actually looking interested. You couldn’t help but feel proud for maintaining a conversation this long.  
“Yeah, but we’ve got all these dumb fears that make us act like assholes,” you started.  
“Like what?” he asked. 

“Finished,” Dirk said before you could answer. You glared at him, feeling more than a little bitter at the interruption.  
“That was fast,” John said, clearly quite impressed.  
“Well, time flies by when you’re flirting with a different species,” Dirk said with a smirk. You felt yourself go a bit red.  
“I ain’t flirting,” you snapped.  
“Sure,” Dirk said, “anyway. I get the feeling you can’t be out of water for too long, so we’re just gonna put you in a tank for now.” John gave him the biggest bitchface you have seen in your life.  
“It’s temporary, alright?” is all you said. He nodded reluctantly. You could practically hear Dirk rolling his eyes.  
“Okay. Okay. Dave, take your difficult fish boyfriend, stick him in a tank, and lock up.” Dirk tossed you the keys.  
“He’s NOT my BOYFRIEND,” you said for the millionth (third) time that day.  
“Okay so you’re cool with locking up? Great, see you tomorrow,” Dirk said, and you slowly realized that you’d fallen into a trap. Before you could even argue, Dirk was out the door.  “Son of a bitch,” you muttered, and you turned back to John. He took one look at your face and burst into uncontrollable laughter.  
“Your face!” he managed to get out, “It’s so red!”  
“Yeah well,” you said, trying to come up with a witty retort, “Shut up.” He didn’t though, and kept laughing like a massive douche. You stood there for a little while, just watching, and quickly got bored. Quick as a flash, you scooped his (still laughing) ass up and dumped it in the stupid tank. His face when he hit the water was absolutely priceless. You wished you’d had a camera. He sank to the bottom, and shot up again, eyes still wide. You smirked a little.  
“What? I thought you could breathe under water,” you said cooly.  
“Yeah, but it’s FREEZING!” he cried. You just snorted.  
“Don’t be such a baby, I’m sure it’s fine,” you said, leaning over the tank. He looked up at you, a grin slowly spreading over his face. Your heart dropped.  
“John no,” you said, taking a small step back and frantically emptying your pockets.  
“Why don’t you come in and try for yourself?” he said, slowly swimming to the edge.  
“Dude c’mon I have to walk home don’t do this to me,” you said, turning around to make a sprint for the door. But you were too slow. John grabbed the collar of your shirt with both his hands and yanked you in. Instinctively, you put your hands over your face to protect your precious shades, and then you were under water. 

The water was absolutely FREEZING. 

You fought your way to the surface, gasping for breath. John was looking a little concerned, and you took full advantage of this.  
“Asshole,” you said, splashing him a little. He slipped back into a massive smile and splashed you back. With his fucking tail. 

This went on for a lot longer than you’d like to admit, but by the end of it you were ten pounds heavier with the soaking water.  
“Jeez, you’re kinda a jerk,” you said, pulling yourself out of the shallow tank, “I’d hoped that mermaids would be magically kind or some shit. But nope, you’re the biggest asshole I ever met no joke.” You turned around just in time to see him stick out his tongue.  
“You’re stronger than you look, y’know,” you said over your shoulder as you pulled off first your jacket, then your shirt. It was true. At a glance, he was a small, weedy little guy, but he’d pulled you clean off your feet and into a tank full of water. 

You weren’t going to admit it, but it was pretty hot. 

Deciding to leave your pants on for the sake of your own mental health, you pulled a towel out from a cupboard nearby and wrapped it around your shoulders.  
“D’you take it back, then?” he asked, and you could fucking hear the smirk in his voice.  
“Take what back? I’m sorry, I’m too busy getting hypothermia to answer that right now.” You pulled up a chair and sat down next to the tank, trying not to shiver. He smiled smugly. It was then that your stomach decided to make an entry, gurgling loudly.  
“Aw man, I never got dinner,” you said with an air of resignation.  
“You think that’s bad, I never got breakfast, lunch, OR dinner,” John said, hanging his arms over the edge of the tank.  
“Way to make it a competition,” you said, and he laughed a little. You couldn’t help but smile.  
“Serious though, what do you eat?” you said, standing up.  
“Uh, fish,” he said.  
“Just, like, a whole fish?” you said over your shoulder, “raw?”  
“Yep,” is all he said.  
“Well, we’ve got that,” you called over your shoulder, and headed into the office. 

In the education centre, there was an office. In the office, there was a fridge. And in the fridge, there was nothing but buckets and buckets of mackerel. You knew this, because Dirk liked telling the story of the first day he worked here he went to get something to snack on, and all he got was mackerel. You grabbed one of the more empty ones and headed back out, locking the door behind you. 

You couldn’t even say ‘here you go’ before he’d grabbed the bucket and started chowing down, making a huge mess.  
“So,” he said between mouthfuls, “what kinda things are humans scared of?” Okay, weird. Totally out of the blue.  
 “What?” was all you could manage.  
“Y’know, like you were saying earlier,” he said, tossing the skeleton of an entire mackerel back in the bucket.  
“Oh yeah,” you said, leaning back in the chair and stretching a little, “Well, everyone’s scared of something. But nobody’s scared of everything, and nobody’s going to admit it.”  
“See, a lot of people are afraid of things that are different. Like, a lot of dudes are afraid of girls, ‘cause they’ve got boobs and shit. So they act like assholes to girls. People normally call that sexism.”  
“And then some people got white skin, but some people got darker, kinda brown skin. So white people act like assholes to the brown people ‘cause they’re different. But we call that racism.”  
“And then some dudes are attracted to dudes, but most dudes are attracted to girls. But they’re scared of the dudes who are attracted to dudes, so then there’s a whole thing about how dudes can’t marry other dudes, and that’s just called homophobia. None of it makes sense, I mean, we’re all people. But you have to be a certain kind of person for people not to be an asshole to you.” You stop yourself, because of the weird looks John’s giving you. "What?"  
“People are mean to other people because of who they wanna pork?” he asked, clearly totally shocked.  
“Pretty much,” you said, nodding sagely, “is that not how it works in the mer-world or whatever.” John shrugged, picking up another fish.  
“We’re all pretty much attracted to everyone,” he said, “because sex with pretty much anyone works.”  
“Wait what do you mean ‘works’?”  
“Well, if two dudes get it on, they can make a kid. If two chicks get it on, they can make a kid. If a dude and a chick get it on, they make a kid,” he said casually, then stopped short, “Isn’t that how it works with you guys?”  
“Only a chick and a dude can make a kid up here,” you said, and you swear he nearly spat out the gross mouthful of half-eaten fish he had in his mouth.  
“Really?” he cried, “why?”  
“I’ll tell you another day,” was all you said. No WAY were you going to explain how babies happened to a merdude your age. Or at least, he looked your age.  
“How old are you, anyway?” you asked, trying desperately to change the subject.  
“240 moons,” he said without missing a beat.  
“Moons?”  
“Yeah, y’know, like the time it takes for the moon to go from full to new to full again. One moon.” It took you longer than it should have to work out that he meant months. And it then took you longer than it should have to work out that he was 20 years old. Same as you.

“Anyway, it’s been a really great start to a beautiful friendship, but I need to go home,” you said finally, the stupid ten page essay hanging over your head. John dropped the last skeleton back into the bucket and licked his fingers clean. You went back into the office, left the bucket on the desk and grabbed a large tarp. John scowled when you pulled it out.  
“Remember what I said about people being fucking assholes because they’re afraid of people who are different?” you said. You hoped you wouldn’t have to expand. He got your message and slipped back into the freezing water. The tank wasn’t see through, which made your life a million times easier.  
“‘Night, John,” you said, and chucked the tarp over the top.  
“Goodnight Dave!” he said cheerily, “And uh, thanks. For, y’know. Not being a total dick and handing me over or whatever.”  
“It’s cool. Get some sleep, and try not to make too much noise. I’ll come over again tomorrow, Kay?”  
“Kay.” 

You grabbed your things and left, taking the shortcut back to campus. You felt disproportionately proud of yourself, but hey. You made him trust you. 

And that was the best feeling in the world.


	3. He's NOT my BOYFRIEND (yet).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave is in total denial and they're massive dorks. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOoww wowo owowwowoowow. 
> 
> Wow. 
> 
> I seriously hadn't anticipated the reaction this'd get! And I think you should know that everytime I notice the kudos number go up I make a noise eerily similar to that of an excited small child on christmas morning so.

You woke up unusually early to the sound of a relentless, high pitched beeping. Motherfucker. Rolling over on your side, you checked time on your phone, trying to remember why the fuck you needed to wake up so motherfucking early. That’s right, the fucking ten page essay on the breeding rituals of fucking fish. You groaned, rolling out of bed and onto the cold floor. 

Due to a fluke in the system, you never got assigned a roommate. Which was just the way you liked it. Your stuff had sprawled over everything, notebooks stashed in the weirdest places, underwear hanging from the ceiling fan. It was like a bomb had gone off and unstead of shrapnel had decided to rain down a plethora of random domestic items. And you loved it. 

You went over to a corner of the room, and riffled through a pile of junk until you came across your laptop. It was the perfect disguise. Say some dude broke into your apartment and started looking for valuable shit, the last place he’d look was under a small pile of empty AJ bottles and chip packets. 

“Okay,” you said under your breath, “fucking fish. Fish fucking. Ten pages in four days. I can do that.” And so you started typing. Why the hell didn’t you start this yesterday? What were you even doing yesterday? Your fingers stopped suddenly as you remembered in a flash. Mermaid. Hella cute, hella funny mermaid. And suddenly you couldn’t care less about the essay. 

There was no way in HELL you actually liked him like that. I mean, he didn’t even have a dick. Fish don’t have dicks. You knew that much from the essay you were meant to be writing. Besides, it was probably just your reaction to finding something new and exciting. There was no way you liked him for real, it was just dumb sixth grade puppy love. 

But you couldn’t deny that he was adorable as fuck. And you also couldn’t deny that you and him had a certain...something. I mean, he totally didn’t trust humans, but he seemed pretty comfortable around you. Plus, you were actually looking forward to seeing him again, and this almost NEVER happened with other people. But, like you said, it was probably because there was so much new about him. He was unusual. He was different. 

Kinda like you were to him. 

So you worked through your stupid essay and tried to get as much done as you could in the morning so you’d be able to actually go and hang out with John and not have to plough through ten pages on friday at four in the morning. 

For the first ever time, it wasn’t a mad scramble to get to class, and you had no idea what to do with yourself. For a while, you awkwardly paced around the halls, checking your phone and generally making a nuisance of yourself. You’d been banned from the campus library (Dirk had convinced you it’d be hilarious if you went crashing into a book shelf feet first while screaming ‘PARKOUR’. It was.), so there wasn’t much you could do other than gorge yourself at the canteen. Damn, you needed to buy Dirk lunch at some point. You’d probably end up getting him a months supply of cup noodles. That’ll show him. 

When it was finally time for you to go to class, you found you had trouble paying attention to 90% of the lecture. Every fifteen minutes you had a new question for John, and you scribbled it down in the margin. It was mostly stuff like ‘Democracy/Communism?’ or ‘Consumer based society?’ or ‘TECHNOLOGY???????? MEDICINE??????’, but then there was the occasional ‘favourite subject’, ‘favourite colour’, ‘first crush’. At the end of the lecture, you put a huge, messy circle around them and shut the book. 

The rest of the day continued like that, and you eventually had four notebooks with badly worded questions scribbled down. Immediately after classes ended, you headed over to grab some coffee from the campus shop (for some reason, you were fucking exhausted). After that, you headed back to your apartment, dropped your stuff off, and headed off to the centre.

You were hella psyched. You were so caught up in hoping and thinking and imagining that you didn’t even see Jade until there was coffee all down her front.   
“Shit,” you said, suddenly being pulled back into the real world, “Sorry, Jade.” She just smiled brightly.   
“It’s fine! Coffee washes out,” she grinned. You let yourself crack half a smile. You remember why you’d dated this girl; she was pretty cool.   
“But Dave...” she continued, her lips pulling into a mischievous grin. Oh shit.   
“But Jade?” you said, hoping that what was coming wasn’t what you thought was coming.   
“Why were you in such a rush?” she asked sweetly.   
“Was I rushing?” you deadpanned. No, not this game. You didn’t have time to play this fucking game.   
“You were practically running,” she said, laughing a little.   
“Didn’t notice,” was all you said. You tried to sidestep her, but she blocked your path.   
“So why were you rushing?”   
“Because this campus is hella depressing and I wanted to get away.” That was a blatant lie. The campus was beautiful; trees and flowers and loads of open spaces.   
“So where were you going?” she asked, with the stupid ‘I’m-so-innocent’ face.   
“Nowhere, really.”  
“Great!” she said, grabbing your hand, “you can help me with my biology practical!”   
“Not got the time,” you said trying to pull away, but she tightened her grip.   
“You said you weren’t GOING anywhere,” she said.   
“Yeah but-”   
“Soooo, you were lying.”   
“God damn it, Harley. What do you want me to say?”   
“The truth.”   
“The truth is none of your business,” you said, finally managing to pry yourself from her death grip. She whirled around, an unnaturally large grin plastered on her face.   
“I KNEW IT!” she cried.   
“Knew what?” you said, but it was too late. Jade was remarkably good at finding the subtext in your words.   
“You used the SAME EXACT words to literally EVERYONE ELSE on campus when you were headed to one of our dates,” she grinned, “so who is it?”  
 “Not telling.”   
“Is he hot?”   
“Not telling.”  
“I’m coming with you.”   
“No way in fucking Hell.”   
“What are you trying to hide?” You felt yourself start to go a little red.   
“Nothing, I-”  
“Do I know him?”   
“Harley, for fucks sake.”   
“Have you been on a date with him before?” You went a marginally more red.   
“I-”   
“You haven’t, have you?” You just sighed, giving up.   
“Well that’s all you had to say!” she laughed, turning to go.   
“Bye, Jade,” you said with another, heavier sigh.   
“Bye Dave! I’ll find out who he is eventually, though!” she said, skipping off to do her stupid plant experiment. You just ran a hand through the mop of blonde hair on your head, turned on your heals, and left. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dirk had gone home by the time you got to the centre, so you had to hop the fence. No big deal, you’d done it plenty times before. Plus, this one didn’t even have a barbed wire fence. You landed quietly, and made your way over to John’s tank. The tarp was still over it, so you assumed he was still there, and he was still safe.   
“Knock knock,” you said cautiously. Other than some slight splashing and bubbling, there was silence.   
“Dave!” came the high pitched, overly cheerful reply. You tugged the tarp off the tank, revealing the goofily grinning face of none other than John NLN.   
“‘Sup?” you said, leaning on the edge of the tank.   
“Dude, what took so long?” he asked, clearly a little miffed. You shrugged.   
“Accidentally got caught up in a lengthy conversation about where I was going,” you said. His eyes widened.   
“Calm down man,” you said, “didn’t tell her. As far as she knows, I’m on a date with a super hot model.” You saw him relax a little.   
“So, you DID tell the truth!” he said with a grin.   
“Alright, A) this is not a date, and B) you are not hot,” you said with half a smirk. He pouts.   
“Awww. Don’t be like that, babe,” he said, sticking out his bottom lip. Okay, fine. You’ll play ball.   
“I just can’t bring myself to trust you since you cheated on me with that Victoria’s Secret model,” you said, putting your hand on your forehead melodramatically. He looked a little confused, so you clarify.   
“Ladies underwear models. They’re all mega hot,” you said quietly. He nods a little.   
“I swear, it didn’t mean anything!” he said, taking one of your hands in his. Fuck he was cold. You just looked away.   
“I could only ever love you,” he whispered, and it took everything you had not to burst into laughter right then and there. But that would have ended the game. You sigh.   
“I know, it’s just...Ever since my first husband died in that horrific boating accident-” you heard him snort “-which never would have happened if he hadn’t been dating thirty six other women-” he giggled a little “-I’m incredibly sensitive to any sign that my partners aren’t being faithful to me and buying be ass tones of diamonds.”   
“I promise never to hurt you like that,” he said, his voice strained, “The only reason I had to sleep with that other woman was because of my dangerously volatile bipolar disorder, I swear!” Huh, you thought, they have bipolarity too? You gasped melodramatically.   
“But, I thought you were taking meds for that?” you said, turning to him and taking his other hand. Your heart started to race a little at the contact.   
“The meds only made it worse,” he said, turning away. You snorted a little.   
“Well, it’ll all be okay,” you said, trying not to laugh, “because I have a surprise for you.” He turns to you, hope in his eyes.   
“John,” you said, taking melodramatic deep breaths, “I’m pregnant!”   
“B-but that’s impossible!” he cried, retracting his hands, “because I’m sterile!” 

And you both burst into hysterical, loud laughter. You can’t remember the last time you laughed like this around someone else. Your chest swelled to know that you’d made someone else laugh like this, and John was still laughing long after you’d calmed down. He laughed like a teenage boy; loudly, ridiculously, with snorts and coughs. It was the most annoying laugh you had ever heard, and you found it totally mesmerizing. 

“Good to know shitty soap operas are a universal thing,” you said, pulling up a chair and plonking yourself down. You were about an arms length from the tank. He nodded, dunking his glasses in the water to try and clear the fog that’d formed on them. Damn, he’d been in that tank, with nothing to do but look forward to your visit in freezing cold water all day. Musta sucked.   
“Serious though, sorry about the wait. Hope you weren’t too bored,” you said. He leaned over the side of the tank, waving a hand dismissively.   
“It’s cool. The other guy, y’know, the one who stitched me up?” he said with a smile.   
“Dirk?” you felt your stomach knot in jealousy. Dirk already had a hot as hell boyfriend, he could get his stupid, dirty hands off John. Wait.   
“Yeah. I guess. He never told me his name,” he said, and that calmed you down a little. Dirk totally had no interest in John, duh. And neither did you, you’d established this.   
“Dick. What about him?”   
“He was playing some like, audiobooks and world histories and stuff. So I had stuff to do,” he said with a grin, “Plus I thought up some questions so we wouldn’t be sitting here in awkward silence.” You felt the smallest smile tug at the corners of your mouth.   
“Cool, so did I. You go first,” you said, rubbing your hands together.   
“What’s a rabbit?” he asks without missing a beat.   
“...What?”   
“One of the audiobooks mentioned a pet rabbit, and I have literally no idea what that is,” he says, looking at you expectantly.  
“Uh...” you start. How the fuck does one explain what a rabbit is? “Uh, it’s about this big and uh...wait lemme get a picture up.” You pulled out your phone.   
“Also what’s that?” he asked, pointing to the smartphone. This you could do.   
“It’s called a phone. I can call other people who have phones, so basically everyone, and talk to them even if they’re on like, the other side of the country. Also I can get on the internet, which is like a humungous library full of literally all the info you could possibly need, and you can access it from basically everywhere.” He nodded, and you brought up a picture of a rabbit.   
“Don’t drop it in water,” you said, handing him the phone, “it’ll break.” He nodded again, and made the most ridiculous noise.   
“It’s ADORABLE,” he said with the biggest smile on his face, “I need like, fifty.” You chuckled a little, taking the phone back.   
“Okay your turn,” he said, the stupid smile still plastered all over his dumb little face.   
“What kinda a government do you have?” you ask. He sighs a little.   
“Okay, so this is gonna take a lot of explaining,” he said, pausing to try and get his thoughts together, “Okay. Okay. Okay. So, the way our cities work, is that it’s basically columns of caves stacked one on top of the other, and these go down super super deep. The closer you are to the surface, the lower class you are, Okay?”   
"Okay..."  
“Okay, and there are like these, city squares for each class. So, if you’re a lower class you have a city square that’s relatively close to the surface, If you’re a middle class, you have a city square that’s lower down, and if you’re an upper class you have the square that’s furthest from the surface, okay?”   
“Okay,” that made sense. Ish.   
“Okay, and then at the bottom, like, under the lowest square, lives the Dark One. See, her family’s been down there for thousands of years. Most upperclass people are super super pale, ‘cause not much light gets down there, and they need their skin to be pale so they can absorb vitamin E, okay?”   
“Okay.”   
“Okay, but the Dark Ones’ family’s been down there SO LONG that vitamin E’s now actually toxic to her, so her skin is pitch black, so vitamin E can’t get into her system. And we sort of revere her as a God, ‘cause she can adapt super well, so she makes all the rules and stuff, okay?”   
“No, that’s stupid,” you said, and quickly regretted it. He looks a little hurt. “Sorry.”   
“It’s fine, it is pretty stupid, but you get it, right?” he asked, perking up a little.   
“Yeah, I get it,” you replied. A grin broke out across his whole face as he breathed a small sigh of relief, and your heart melted a little.   
“Okay, what’s a dog?” was his next question. You rolled your eyes, bringing up a picture of a puppy. He freaked out over how adorable it was and handed back the phone. You asked about food. It would seem most people just went out, caught a fish, and ate it raw. But you supposed it made sense. After all, there was no way they’d have fire.   
“Okay,” he said, and paused for a little bit.   
“Were those your only two questions?” you asked, trying not to laugh.   
“No,” he said, tilting his head to the side a little, “why do you wear those glasses?” 

Oh no. 

The question always came up, and only a couple people knew the answer. And while you were becoming comfortable with John faster than you’d become comfortable with just about anyone else, you weren’t sure if you were totally ready to show him why. 

“It’s a long story,” you said after a slightly uncomfortable pause.   
“Well, I’m not going anywhere!” he said cheerily, and got himself comfortable. You exhaled heavily through your nose and ran a hand through your hair.   
“No it’s uh...” you said, obviously stalling.   
“It’s....?” he said encouragingly. Fuck, he was adorable. And you didn’t wanna lie to him. But you did.   
“My eyes are sensitive to the light so...” you said. This was half true. Your eyes were sensitive to light, having your shades off for too long gave you massive headaches. It wasn’t the main reason you wore ‘em, though. And he clearly didn’t buy it.   
“It’s night,” he said suspiciously, “the sun’s gone down. I’m impressed you can even see in those.”   
“Yeah well, they’re really sensitive,” you said, monotonously.   
“Really.”   
“Yup.”   
"Huh," he settled back a bit, apparently satisfied. You let out a tiny, almost not-even-there sigh of relief, but before you knew it, there was a small splash and your shades were gone. 

You snapped your eyes shut.   
“John, give ‘em back,” you said, holding out your hand.  
“No.”   
“Dude, seriously.”   
“No! C’mon, how bad can your eyes possibly be?” Hella bad. HELLA hella bad. But you didn’t say that.   
“Remember when I said that people act like assholes because they’re afraid of people who are different?” you started. There was a small pause.   
“I promise not to act like an asshole because of what your eyes look like?” he said, like he was asking a question. There was another smallish pause.  
“If I show you my eyes, can we just never bring them up again?” you ask. Shit, no, you were not contemplating this. It’d taken Jade three months of dating and two times in bed just to get a glimpse of your eyes (you didn’t take them off to sleep).   
“Sure, if it makes you happy,” he said, and it made you feel infinitely better about the whole thing. But not good enough to actually do it.   
“Nah. I’ll walk back to campus with my eyes closed. I could probably do it,” you said, and you heard John groan.   
“Please?”   
“Dude, I slept with my girlfriend TWICE before she actually saw ‘em. Two days doesn’t form the bond necessary to-”   
“Yeah, well, we only have a week! Maybe two,” he said, “I’m NOT sleeping with a human. Ew.”   
“Ew.” There was another very long pause. 

And then you opened your eyes. 

His eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and you pointedly stared at the ground.   
“Most people’s eyes are uh, blue. Or green. Mostly brown. Not...” you mumbled. Suddenly, there were freezing cold hands on your cheeks, the sound of glasses clattering to the floor, and your face was being pulled upwards. He stared at your eyes, first one, then the other. Your face went a little red.   
“They’re...” he breathed, like he could barely believe it  
“Red. Yeah,” you mumbled. You were ready for him to let go of your face like you were some kinda demon. You were ready for him to laugh. You were ready for just about every other initial reaction you’d gotten. Except for what he actually did. 

He broke into the biggest bucktoothed grin you’d seen yet.   
“They’re fantastic!” he cried, “They’re like...like rubies and sunsets.” You couldn’t help but laugh a little.  
“Sounds like the name of a ten year old girl's shitty poem,” you said.   
“Well, yeah, but you get the point, right?” he let go of your face, and you swooped down to grab the glasses.   
“Sorta...” you said, pushing them back onto your face.   
“I love ‘em,” he said, and grinned with a subtle, dim sort of satisfaction. Your chest swelled, and you gave him half a smirk.   
“You’d be the first. One time, an old lady threw a bible, a uh, hella heavy religion book at me ‘cause she thought I was the Devil,” you said. He laughed that ridiculous, perfect laugh, and you quickly decided it was time to admit something. 

You, Dave Strider, were hopelessly, undeniably, undoubtably, unchangeably in love with John NLN.


	4. Sleepover Shenanigans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepover!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a little bit filler but lots of Fluff.

That week had been the greatest weak of your whole fucking life. 

Everyday, after classes ended, you went over to the centre and hung out with John, and it made you feel fantastic. Everything was just...really easy. You didn’t have to think about what you said, and it was never awkward or weird. True to his word, he never brought up your eyes again. It was pretty much just questions, punctured with you moaning about your stupid essay and classes. John’s questions seemed mostly benign, usually stuff about life as a human and what you ate and where you slept. Dumb stuff. But recently, it’d been getting more and more personal. Like who your girlfriend was and why you liked her and why it hadn’t worked out. You answered his questions happily, and he answered your creepy personal questions with the sort of eagerness that was a little bit disturbing. 

Here’s what you knew about him as of Friday;   
He was about 20. He’d never had a girlfriend/boyfriend. Or any actual friends, which made you his first (you can’t deny, that made you feel fucking awesome). But from what you’d heard, friend stuff wasn’t a big thing in mer-societies so. Anyway. He got sick a lot when he was a kid, and he hadn’t seen his dad since he was about ten.   
“Dude, what?” you’d asked, sitting up straighter, “why?” He’d shrugged.   
“It’s just a thing. When you’re ten, you just...stop living with your parents,” he said, drumming his fingers on the edge of the tank.   
“And you can’t even go and see ‘em?”   
“Well, yeah,” he said, going a little quiet.   
“So...?”  
“But Dad got uh...banished,” he said, his voice hoarse, “cause he...”  
“Spoke with a human?” you finished. He nodded, refusing to meet your eye. You were both silent for a long time after that. He’d explained the whole banishment deal, how mer-people got given legs and sent onshore, and how this was usually a death sentence. 

But other than that, and a couple other conversations (“I lived with my big brother for the last like, five years.” “Why?” “Dad was a total, deadbeat”), you’d both kept the conversation light hearted. You usually went home and worked on your essay in the weird sort of happy-haze the hang-out sessions left you in. 

At the end of the week, you handed in your complete ten page essay and practically skipped out of the hall, mentally high-fiving yourself. 

It was friday night, and normally you spent it sleeping and dicking around on the internet. But tonight was different. You actually had shit to do. You’d seen a post on the internet about putting a kiddie pool in a bigger pool so you could have a floating beer carrier or something, but you had better plans for it. 

As usual, you waited until everyone’d gone home, then hopped the fence over at the centre. But first, you chucked over an inflatable kiddie pool, some blankets, some towels, and a couple pillows. John stuck his head out from under the tarp. He’d learned to recognize the sound of you hopping the fence, and he'd learned that it meant 'the coast's clear'.   
“Uh...Dave?” he asked, blinking a little.   
“Yeah?” you said, unraveling the plastic pool you’d stolen from Jake.   
“What is all that?”  
“Sleepover, man,” you said, staring to inflate it, “It’s the weekend, I handed in my essay, time for a motherfucking strider sleepover like we’re thirteen. I brought the doritos. Hopefully they won’t kill you.”   
“I don’t see why they would,” he said, starting to throw off the tarp, “I mean, we’ve practically got the same anatomy. I can just eat more raw fish than you. Also, do you know how much raw fish sucks? I’ve been eating nothing but stupid raw fish since I was like, three moons old and I’m SUPER sick of it!”

While he ranted and rambled about why he hated eating raw fish, you inflated the fairly large kiddie pool, chucked it in John’s tank, chucked some blankets and pillows in there, pulled out a portable DVD player, picked a movie, managed to get into the floating bed without tipping it and shoved the pack of doritios into John’s chest.   
“Dude, just shut up and eat the fucking chips, you’ve been talking for nearly an hour straight.” He shut is mouth and squinted at you.   
“What the hell is THAT?” he asked, pushing the pool a little. It lamely floated away, bumping against the side of the tank.   
“Inverse waterbed,” you said, “If this is gonna be a proper ass sleepover it’s gonna hafta get weirdly intimate at about three in the morning and I can’t do that from the cold hard ground. C’mon, John. Eat the damn chips.” He just shrugged and opened the packet. Or he tried to, but his wet ass hands made it difficult to. You sighed, grabbed the packet, opened it and handed it back. He looked at them apprehensively.  “Uh...”  
“C’mon, take your first step into the wonderful world of the culinary arts.”  
“Are you SURE these won’t kill me?” he said, looking up at you.   
“Like, 90% sure,” you said. But you could feel worry knotting in the base of your stomach. Nah, he’d be fine. You were sure of it. He’d TOTALLY be fine. He took a small bite out of a small dorito, and his face lit up. You breathed a small sigh of relief.   
“Better than raw ass fish?” you asked, feeling more than a little smug. He nodded, reaching for another one. Of course these stupid, chemically tortured corn chips weren’t gonna kill him. What the hell’d you been thinking? But suddenly he coughed. And then he coughed some more.   
“You okay, John?” you asked, starting to worry a little. He didn’t respond. He just kept coughing, which turned into gagging, and eventually he just slipped below the surface. 

Oh shit. 

“John?” you said quietly. No response. Shit. SHIT. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit he was dying AGAIN oh god this time it was your fault. You fell gracelessly out of the comfy floating bed and into the freezing water. Your shades fell off. You didn’t even care. The tank was hella shallow, and you made it to the bottom pretty quickly. You grabbed him under his arms, shaking him limply. Oh god. Oh god he was dead he was dead and you'd killed him please god no no no no. But then his eyes opened, and he was laughing. It took you a while to figure out what happened. 

You pushed him away, kicking to the surface. You hadn’t realized how much you needed to breathe until you were gasping for breath.   
“You’re a dick, y’know that?” you said, falling out of the tank. He was hanging over the side, laughing until there were tears streaming down his cheeks.   
“You should have seen your face!” was all he seemed to be able to say.   
“Hey. Fuck you, man, I thought you were dead,” was all you seemed to be able to say. Secretly, you were fucking relieved as hell, you were nearly weak in the knees. But you were also pissed.   
“Awww, Davey cares about me,” he said with a smug ass grin.  
“No Davey hates you with the burning passion of a thousand suns,” you corrected, wriggling out of your soaking wet clothes, “Right now, I literally hate you more than the nickname ‘Davey’ and let me tell you, I really fucking hate that name.” You turned away, pulling on a pyjama shirt that you'd brought with you. There was an awkward pause, followed by a little splashing.   
“These are yours,” he said. You turned around, and there were your shades sitting in his outstretched hand. You took them, sliding them back onto your face. John was looking more and more guilty as the seconds passed.    
“So...sleepover?” he said hopefully. You couldn’t help but smirk.   
“Yeah man. I can never stay mad at my widdle Johnny Boy,” you said. He scowled.   
“Don’t CALL me that!”   
“You pretended you were dead so you could laugh at me. I think I get to call you whatever I like,” you said, carefully climbing back into the bed. He just rolled his eyes. 

You two stayed up watching shitty movies until around 2 in the fucking morning. With the DVD player balanced precariously on the side of the tank and John balanced precariously on the side of the floating bed, it was very much a case of ‘Don’t breathe too excessively or everything could go to shit’. Movies weren’t a thing in the mer-world; all they really had was a play or something in the city square every two weeks, and that was all part of the shitty soaps thing. Jake was really into movies. Like, DISTURBINGLY into movies. He collected them, hoarded them, you were pretty sure he stuck his dick in a couple. But whatever. No other person had as extensive a collection of crappy movies. John loved them. You loved to hate them. By the end of it, you were so tired you could barely keep your eyes open. However, you and John were also nice and dry. You shut the DVD player, putting it back into your backpack.   
“Okay John, there’s one other rule of Strider sleepovers,” you said, getting yourself comfortable under the blankets.   
“Yeah?” he said, stifling a yawn  
“The dudes gotta share the bed,” you smirked to yourself. This one always started up an argument.   
“Okay,” John said cheerfully. That took you a little by surprise.   
“Seriously?” you cocked an eyebrow. John shrugged.   
“You’re warm, the water’s cold,” he said simply. 

He slid off the edge and into the actual bed-area, knocking the glasses off his face. His tail hung over the side; half in the water and half out. You were struck again how small he was, and how utterly adorable.   
“Dude,” you said, passing him a blanket, “you’re tiny.” He whined.   
“I’m not TINY, you’re just HUGE,” he said, flopping over on his side. You snorted, reaching out to ruffle his hair. Jesus there was a lot of it. And it was surprisingly soft.   
“Whatever you say, mister tiny merman,” you said. He tried to vengefully glare at you, but it was more just him squinting in the dark. It looked hilarious.   
“Why the hell do you sleep with your shades on?” he asked, propping himself up. You breathed out heavily through your nose.   
“Because.”   
“Take ‘em off,” he said, scooting a little closer.   
“Nah.”   
“Please?” Before you could even say ‘nah’, one of his hands shot out to grab them straight off your face. You were faster, and caught his wrist. His other hand shot out, and you caught his other wrist.   
“Nah.” He huffed, withdrew his wrists and settled back down. You both lay there a moment, and you half heartedly took off your glasses, setting them down carefully next to you. John let out a satisfied little hum.   
“Why do you care so much anyway?” you asked, glancing at him. He shrugged.   
“Just like looking at your face, I guess,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. You felt your face go very, very hot.   
“Goodnight, Jonathan,” you said, and shut your eyes. A few seconds later, you felt John inch closer to you. A few seconds after that, it happened again. You sighed.   
“John,” you said, looking over at him.   
“Dave.”   
“If you wanna get closer, all you gotta do is ask.”   
“Can I get closer?”   
“Yes.” There was half a pause, and John pressed himself against your side. Your heart sped up (he was close oh god he was so close you could just lean over and kiss him if you wanted and-). Oh. Oh fuck he was absolutely freezing.   
“Nope, I take it back,” you said, squirming away, “your skin is like ice.”   
“Daaavvveeeeee,” he whined, “but you’re all warm! You have like, excess warm. Just share your stupid warmth! Please?”  
“No.”   
“Please?”  
“John, I said no already.”   
“Pleeeeeeaaaaasssssseeeeee?”   
“Ugh. Fine.” He snuggled up against you again, and this time you managed to bring yourself to wrap your arms around his chest. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, sighing contently. You pulled a blanket over the two of you, drawing up your feet so they didn't stick out at the end. You smiled to yourself, pushing your face into his thick, dark hair. He smelled like the sea; like salt and mysteries and infinity. You were comfortable, and felt yourself slipping off to dreamland  
“Goodnight, John,” you said, slurring a little.   
“G'Night Dave,” he mumbled.

You sighed with satisfaction, and were asleep before you could even say 'My life is pretty fucking great right now'.


	5. Forever's a Lonely Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff happens and Dave mopes

The two weeks went by quicker than you would have liked. 

You didn’t have any other big ass bitch asignments, so you spent a good deal more time with John. There’d been three more sleepovers, which meant you had to put up with his cold ass skin three more times. You didn’t mind though. Any excuse to get closer to him, right? 

You forced him to sit through marathons of Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, Doctor Who, every Robin Williams movie ever made, all marvel movies, and the Harry Potter movies. But, out of all of those, he was still convinced that Con Air was the cinematic masterpiece of our time. What an uncultured bucktoothed dork. In return, he detailed the entire plot (so far) of his crappy soap opera. You, totally ironically, paid very close attention to everything he said. 

“But then Eliot-” he said, trying to figure out how to word his next sentence.   
“That’s the guy who fought in the War, right?” you asked, butting in. There were loads of characters. It was hard to keep up.   
“Yeah! Anyway, so Eliot told Marcus that Laura was dead,” he said, getting very excited, “so he could keep her for himself!”   
“There have gotta be better ways to get the girl,” you said, shaking your head sadly.   
“Well, his whole thing’s that the war twisted his sense of morals and stuff. You’re kinda meant to feel bad for him.”   
“But he’s a massive dickwad.”   
“You’re still meant to feel bad for him,” he said after a long time spent considering your point.  
“Just cause he’s a veteran doesn’t excuse him from fucking toying with people’s emotions,” you said, hoping to be done with the argument.   
“Down there, it does. Veterans get away with pretty much anything, cause we’re super grateful that we’re not dead.”   
“Who were you guys fighting, anyway?” He said that all the other mermaids died out or something. There was a long silence.   
“You guys,” he said finally.   
“Weird. I never heard of an inter-species war. Was this recently?” you asked. He nodded.   
“You never heard of it cause we uh...drowned all the humans that uh...saw us,” he said finally.   
“Doesn’t sound like much of a war to me,” you said finally. He just shook his head.   
“I’m pretty sure it was just a propaganda-y thing,” he said, waving a hand dismissively, “unless you are totally different to literally every person in the world, human’s seem pretty cool.” You allowed yourself a small, genuine smile at that.   
“Anyway, Eliot the dick,” you said. He jumped slightly, like he was snapping out of some kind of haze.   
“Right. So then Laura...” 

The two weeks went quicker than you’d hoped. You completely forgot that he even had to leave until Dirk showed up after hours one day. You both looked at him in surprise.   
“What the fuck are you doing here?” you asked, more than a little annoyed at the interruption.   
“Two weeks is up,” he said, leaning against the fence, “time for the stitches to come out.” The words came like a slap in the face. The stitches came out, John stuck around for maybe two more days and then he was gone. 

Forever. 

But Striders don’t feel. They don’t have emotions like this shit. So all you did was shrug.  
“Okay then,” you said, and turned to John. He looked heartbroken, but only for half a second. He quickly plastered an incredibly fake smile all over his face.   
“Sweet! Get it over with so I can stop hanging out with you dumb humans,” he said, tail swishing a little. Dirk pulled out the med box.   
“C’mon, Dave, lay your difficult fish boyfriend out on the terribly sterile table and try not to pop a boner,” he said with a smirk.   
“Hey, you’re the one who voluntarily spends days they coulda spent with their hot as fuck boyfriend around children, so who here has the weirder kink,” you said, slinging John over your shoulder, “Also he’s not my boyfriend.”   
“Yeah! We got married like, three days ago! Kinda rude you weren’t at the ceremony,” John grinned. You laughed a little. 

You set John down on the table whilst dirk pulled out the stitches. He’d have some hella cool scars there for the rest of his life. Thin lines of red stretching over the beautiful blue tail. It really was beautiful; like the sea and sky melded together in the most fantastic and beautiful way imaginable. A nebula of blue, stretching on forever and ever.   
“Dave?” John said, and it was only then you realised that he’d asked you a question.   
“John.”   
“I asked you a question.”   
“Did you.”   
“Yeah.”   
“Would you mind repeating said question so I can answer it?”   
“Nope. You never get to hear the question. Opportunity missed.”   
“I’ll forever mourn this missed opportunity to make a dick joke.”   
“How d’you know you’d be able to make a dick joke out of it?” he asked suspiciously.   
“Try me.”   
“I asked if you’re feeling alright,” he said finally.   
“Alright isn’t the only think I’m feeling,” you said without missing a beat. John laughed his perfect, ridiculous laugh. You smirked a little, and everything was fine.   
“Seriously though, are you okay?” he said after a little while.   
“I’m fine,” you said, doing a fantastically good job of lying through your teeth, “why wouldn’t I be?”   
“It’s just...well, I’m gonna miss you. A lot. I was wondering if-”   
“I’m FINE, John,” and you stressed the ‘fine’ so he’d know just how fucking fine you were. But it sounded painfully forced and totally not true. John new it. You saw it on his face.   
“Okay then,” was all he said. You all lapsed into silence after that. 

You came back the next day, but everything was quieter. Everything had a definite feeling of ending, a shadow hanging over everything making it all so much darker. And you felt like crap. 

You hated to admit it, but there was one person you could go to for advice. And oh GOD did you hate to admit it. 

The Skype ringing noise pissed you off more and more every ring. God fucking damn it just pick up. Just pick up before you reconsidered and-  
“David,” your cousin said, eyebrows arched.   
“Rose.”   
“And to what do I owe this unexpected call?” she asked sweetly.   
“You know why,” you said through gritted teeth. (Don’t make me say it, don’t make me say it)  
“Well, I assume it has something to do with a boy,” she said with a sigh, “But if we could speed things up, that would be nice.”   
“I’m sure your girlfriend won’t mind that you’re late.”   
“Yes, but I do hate making her wait, so let’s get this over with.”   
“Okay, so there’s this boy I like...” you start, trying to come up with a convincing lie.   
“Naturally,” she said cooly.   
“Shut up. The thing is, he’s going away next week, and I’m never going to see him again,” you said.  
“Get his Skype. Pesterchum. Facebook, anything,” she interrupted.   
“I can’t. His parents are apparently super strict and if they find out he has any of those, they kick him out of the house.” You mentally high-five yourself. Convincing lie.   
“Well, does he feel the same way about you that you do about him?” she asked with a sigh.   
“Doubt it. I’m like, 90% sure he’s aromantic,” you said with a sigh, “but that’s not the issue.”   
“So what is?” she asked, her voice strained and impatient, “might I remind you that you’re not the only one who would like to spend time with me.”   
“How do I stop caring about him?” you said, finally dropping the bombshell. If you didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt. There was a long silence.   
“Dave, this isn’t what you want to hear, but you can’t,” she said finally, “if you like him, you like him. All you can really do is let him go.” She was right. That wasn’t what you’d wanted to hear at all. You wanted a quick fix, like painkillers. You sighed.   
“Is there anything I can do about that?” you asked, rubbing your face a little. There was a long silence.   
“No.” 

You stayed awake all night, thinking, hoping, dreaming your way out of this situation. But it was hopeless. John was floating away, slowly drifting out of your reach. And there wasn’t anything you could do about it.


	6. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is released back into the wild like the majestic dork he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> read the chapter before the notes pls

The day that you went out to set John free into the wild started out like literally any other day. Or, almost. Everything seemed darker. Everything seemed heavier. The lecture seemed more dull, the colours more muted. There was a weight to everything, and no matter where you were, you were counting down. Six hours, twenty two minutes till John leaves. Four hours, fifty five minutes till John leaves. It was agony, and every time you looked up at the clock, you hoped time had miraculously stopped. 

But, of course, it never did. 

And, like everyday, the sun went down, you headed over to the centre. You hopped the fence. John stuck his head out from under the tarp.   
“Hey,” he said. He wasn’t cheerful, he wasn’t smiling, he just looked very, very dejected.   
“Hey,” you said back, leaning against the fence. There was a long silence.   
“Hey Dave?” John said finally.   
“Yeah?”   
“I don’t want to, uh...” he said, and your heart soared. He bit his bottom lip.   
“Don’t want to...?” (Please please please say you don’t want to go just say you want to stay here I can make that happen)  
“I don’t want to uh, bother you guys any longer,” he said, flashing half a smile. You nodded a little.   
“Yeah. Okay,” you said, “Well, we’re gonna drop you off in the middle of the ocean, 'cause that's less dangerous, and Dirk’s got the keys to the boat. So we hafta wait for him.” John nodded, and you lapsed into silence. 

Dirk eventually showed up, his hair ruffled and clothes wrinkled.   
“Sorry totally forgot about this,” Dirk said, fishing the keys out of his pocket. He tossed them to you, you caught them one-handed.   
“Do you know how to drive a boat?” he asked.   
“Yeah, but shouldn’t-”   
“Can’t, I’m in the middle of something. Besides, he’s your fish husband. Drop him off, come back, tie up, lock up.” Before you could even argue, Dirk was gone, sprinting over the sand back towards campus like his life depended on it.   
“Motherfucker,” you said under your breath. John laughed a little. You cracked half a smile.   
“C’mon,” you said, pulling him out of the water and slinging him over your shoulder, “let’s go reunite you with your species. Gonna be a big ass party, relatives all teary eyed and shit. Hailed as a national hero. Showered with medals and-”   
“Dave, you’re rambling,” John said.   
“Not rambling, just detailing the joyous reunion with your kind,” you said, and stopped yourself before it got out of hand again. 

You dumped John in the tiny dingy, clambering in and staring up the motor. And off you went, skipping over the small waves. You were both silent, skipping over the ebony water under the ebony sky, with the only speck of light in the endless shadow about a foot in front of you. The only light, galaxies of blue, a celestial entity encased in the bucktoothed wonder that was John NLN. You took off your shades, for the sake of health and safety.  
“Hey Dave?” he said, finally.   
“Yeah?”  
“Egbert,” he said, turning to you.   
“What?”  
“Remember when you asked me what my last name was?” he said with an embarrassed smile, “It’s Egbert.”  
“Egbert?” you said, trying not to laugh.   
“Don’t laugh!”   
“I’m not laughing. It’s probably a totally normal name for mermaids.”  
“I wish! Most people are like, Smith or Jones or Brown or something boring.”   
“And you got stuck with Egderp.”   
“EgBERT.”   
“Nope I herby decree that your full nickname is Johnnyboy Egderp. So it is written,” you said with a smirk. He groaned. And everything felt normal. 

After a few more moments, you stopped the engine, and just sort of drifted there. John looked at you with those big, beautiful blue eyes. And god, did they look sad.   
“Bye, Dave. Thanks for everything,” he said, forcing a smile. He didn’t move.   
“Bye,” you said.   
“Bye,” he said again.   
“Bye.” And suddenly he was on you, freezing cold arms wrapping around your chest. You hugged him, burying your face in that luscious thick hair.   
“Bye,” he said into your chest.   
“Bye,” you said into his hair. You both stayed like that for a long time, periodically saying ‘bye’. Eventually, he let go, smiled sadly and slipped off the side of the boat. You hung over the side, watching the ripples he left in the dark water.   
“Bye,” you mumbled. 

And suddenly, there were cold, wet hands on your cheeks. And suddenly you were staring at the most beautiful blue eyes you’d ever seen. 

And suddenly, there were surprisingly warm lips on yours. 

Your mind was surprisingly quiet. He tasted like salt, like salt and stardust because it was John and everything about him was beautiful and perfect. You snaked your arms around his small chest, pulling him out of the water an inch more. John Egbert kissed you, and you were sure as shit gonna kiss back. It wasn’t aggressive. There was nothing angry or demanding about it. It was sweet, it was simple, it was kind. Like he was. 

Eventually you two broke apart, and John looked so desperate, so miserable.   
“I don’t wanna go back,” he whispered. There they were, the words you’d been dying to hear. But you knew. Deep in your heart, you knew that he had to.   
“You hafta,” you said, putting your hands on his cheeks, “You hafta. It’s not safe for you up here, alright? If someone finds you, you could die.”  
“But everything down there sucks!”   
“John. It’s a hella shitty idea to keep you up here any longer. It’s playing with fire,” saying it killed you. It really did. You wanted John in that tank forever. But you knew that was shitty and selfish. John sighed.   
“I’ll miss you,” he said quietly.   
“Well, you don’t HAVE to,” you said, slowly getting a fantastic idea. You sat up a little straighter, extending a hand.   
“Johnnyboy Egderp, I am officially asking you out on a date. To here. In a week. I’ll bring the snacks, you bring the soap updates,” you said, the patent Strider smirk sitting on your face. John laughed a little.   
“I accept, on the condition that you NEVER call me Johnnyboy again,” he said, taking your hand.   
“Deal.”  
“Then you, Mr. Strider, have got yourself a date!” he beamed, and you got a face full of his bucktoothed glorious smile. You smirked.   
“See you in a week, Egbert,” you said, ruffling his hair.   
“See you,” he said, the hideous bucktoothed grin still splattered all over his face. He ducked back below the water, only to resurface a couple seconds later.   
“Hey Dave?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I uh...I love you.” He seemed nervous, like this was some great big confession. Maybe kissing meant something totally different in the mer-world. That was okay though, because you were pretty sure love was universal.   
“I love you too, you dork.” And then he disappeared below the water for good. Or at least, till next Tuesday. 

You took the boat back. You tied it up. You locked up, you walked back to campus over the sand. You managed to do all this without cheering. But the second you walked into your dorm room, you screamed into your pillow for ten minutes straight. John liked you. John LIKED you. 

You had yourself a fish boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm funny the ship LITERALLY sailed guys hahaha love me. 
> 
> PS Dirk was doing the do with Jake when he remembered that he needed to get John out of the centre and Jake was like 'If you're not back in five minutes I'm leaving.'


	7. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dates and Dorks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More filler fluff. 
> 
> School went back on monday so I won't be posting as regularly as I was.

True to your word, you stole Dirk’s keys, jumped in the dingy and sped off to vaguely where you let John free one week later. 

The trouble was, you hadn’t timed it at all, and the journey had felt like seconds and years all meshed into a hideous quilt of nonsensical impossibility. Or, in other words, You had an astoundingly bad sense of how long the journey took. 

You skidded around for a little while before eventually giving up and deciding that John was perfectly able to find you. You killed the engine, bobbing about for about fifteen minutes before the misgivings set in. What if he’d changed his mind? What if he COULDN’T find you and thought YOU changed your mind? What if he was already in the process of being banished for fraternizing with humans? What if the dorito poison had taken a very long time to set in and he was dead? What if-

Your thoughts were cut short by some very wet, cold arms were awkwardly wrapped around your waist.   
“Hi Dave!” he said in that stupid cheery tone of voice you loved so much.   
“Heya Egderp,” you smirked, twisting around to look at him, “not run into anymore motorboats yet?” He pulled a face.  
“It was ONE time!” he cried, pouting slightly.   
“It was one VERY SIGNIFICANT time,” you said, and he laughed. Your heart felt like it would eat itself alive.   
“Come on up on the party boat, John. Headed non-stop to partyville where all the women are topless and all the dudes are pants-less and the rivers flow brown with beer,” you said with a flourish.   
“Dave,” he said, grinning like the devil, “rambling.”   
“NOT rambling, just telling you how fucking awesome partyville is. Where was I? Oh yeah, fucking booze rivers, how does that shit work? It’d have to rain booze in the mountains, creating sickass booze glaciers.”   
“But that would mean that the mountains are SUPER cold!” John said, pulling himself up into the boat. You made space for him. He sat next to you, shoulder to shoulder in the fairly narrow boat.   
“Yeah, which creates a thermal gradient making actual partyville 10 times warmer,” you said. You’d bullshitted your way through geography.   
“Not sure that’s how that works,” John said, pulling a face.   
“Well it is in partyville. Woot Woot.” John laughed, you quietly chuckled, and you were both quiet. 

It was nice. It was nice seeing John where he wasn’t trapped in a fucking tank all day. It was nice knowing that John was seeing you because he WANTED to see you.   
“Is it dumb that I kinda missed you?” he said quietly after a long time. It was nice knowing John missed you. You wanted to tell him that it wasn’t weird and you missed him too, then collapse on top of him in a pile of crushing, mildly painful love, but that would’ve been uncool.   
“It’s only been a week, dude,” you said instead.   
“Shut up,” he said, punching your shoulder. You could practically feel his blush. You two lapsed into silence.   
“If it makes you feel any better, I missed you too,” you mumbled. There was another long silence, and you weren’t sure if he’d heard you. Eventually, he slipped his hand on top of yours, resting his head on your shoulder. You felt yourself blush, and sat there rigidly, totally unsure of yourself. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea.   
“Dave,” John said, and you knew he was THIS close to bursting out in laughter.   
“John,” you said, trying to contain your super uncool blush.   
“You’re blushing.”   
“Am not.”   
“Why are you blushing?”   
“I ain’t blushing.”   
“Wow! Were you this uncool with your first girlfriend?”   
“Stuff it.”   
“Dude you’re as red as a tomato!”   
“John I swear to God I’ll push you right off this boat,” you said, turning to look at him. He had the biggest shit-eating smile stuck on his face like a spray-painted mural.   
“No you won’t,” he said, snuggling further into your sides, “because you love me.”   
“Do not,” you scoffed.   
“Do too,” he sang. You just huffed, trying to act like you were mad at him. It, of course, didn’t work, and after a brief period of you fuming at him, you threw your arm around his shoulder. He hummed happily.   
“The sky’s pretty tonight,” John said absently. It was. A thin fingernail of a moon, barely there but brighter than anything sat amongst an endless field of stars, twinkling brightly now that you were away from all the light pollution on campus. But there were prettier things to look at. 

You turned your head slightly to watch John, and took the time to take special note of everything about him. His big, blue eyes (which were only made bigger and bluer by his glasses) sat just under the long, shaggy fringe which hung out from his mop of ridiculous hair. You watched the way his eyes traced patterns in the sky, drawing whole new constellations in the connect the dot pattern of the cosmos. His mouth hung open slightly, showing off his beautifully hideous teeth through his slightly cracked lips. He was, by no definition of the word, pretty. But he was gorgeous. 

He caught you staring at him, scowling a little and pulling the shades off your face. You almost stopped him, but hey. There wasn’t much you could do that would surprise him.   
“The sky’s up there,” he said.   
“I know,” you smirked, “I just prefer to look at you.” You took a good minute and a half to congratulate yourself on how smooth you were. John just grinned and stuck his head back into the space between your neck and your shoulder. You went back to staring at the stars resignedly.   
“I hardly ever see the stars,” John said thoughtfully, “I’m usually asleep by now.”   
“Huh. What d’you think?” you asked, trying to start a conversation.   
“Of what, the stars?” he asked, turning to look at you a little.   
“No, of my fine, sculpted ass,” you said sarcastically, “yes the stars.”  
“Both are good,” he giggled, and you felt the blood creep back to your face.   
“Okay then.” 

You both sat in silence for a long time, occasionally calling each other cute as fuck nicknames like ‘dork’ and ‘mega dork’. Time, as usual, got away from you, and it was half past one in the morning when you finally checked the time. It was two when you finally convinced yourself it was time to go home.   
“So...same time next week?” John said hopefully.   
“I was aiming more along the lines of tomorrow,” you said, “seeing as we missed each other so much.” His face lit up like a christmas tree.   
“Yeah, yeah okay! See you tomorrow!” he said. You smirked, awkwardly planting a kiss on his cheek (Was it this awkward with Jade?). John rolled his eyes.   
“My lips are over here,” he said cockily.   
“Sorry where?” you asked, kissing him on the forehead three or four times.   
“Down a little,” he said, laughing a bit. You placed a weird, sloppy kiss on his nose.  
“Down a little more!” You two kept playing this game, you tracing kisses all over his cold, salty face until he finally grabbed yours and squished your lips together. You tilted your head to the side a little, running one hand through John’s hair, using the other one to warm his cold cheek. Seconds stretched on into years, and all you could see in your future was you kissing this hideous, fantastic dork. 

“So, tomorrow then?” he asked, pink cheeked after you’d broken apart.   
“Yeah.” Was all you said.


	8. Incoming Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah plot development a storm rolls in and shit goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long; three tests this week had to study and stuff. 
> 
> Anyway have a nice long chapter as compensation.   
> Fic's nearly done, I think.

You and John had been dating for about a month. 

And you were happier than a clam. (Side note, where the fuck did that saying come from?). You’d noticed that (while it was harder to pay attention in class) your grades had gone up, and writing long ass essays were easier; almost the opposite of what had happened with Harley. As lame as it sounded, John was almost like an extension of you. A part of you that existed miles and miles away. You quickly found yourself unable to imagine a future where there was no dorky, lame ass mermaid dude waiting for you at the end of the world. 

It turned out that nobody’d noticed him gone in the end, which you found depressing as fuck. But apparently everyone just kept to themselves and didn’t really make friends in the merworld, so it didn’t make him too upset. Whatever. You’d just have to be sad for him. The point was, nobody asked where he'd been, so nobody knew about the whole people thing. 

Tuesday rolled around. As usual, you ignored the weather reports saying that boating was dangerous in the winter, jumped in the boat and skipped out to find John. 

The weather was getting colder and colder, and John said he had to go into hibernation soon just to survive the winter. You were cool with it, cause you had finals in the winter and didn’t need the distraction that his adorable face posed. 

You’d started bringing a spare jacket for John, because he was constantly complaining about how cold he was and how warm you were and was constantly trying to share your jacket. You’d grown up in Texas. The last thing you wanted was a cold, wet body pressed against your bear skin. At least the jacket provided another layer between your skin and his. 

So, as usual you skidded out to approximately where you normally met, watched the sun go down, and waited for John to find you. And, as usual, he did.

He pulled himself onto the boat with grace totally unparalleled. Except, maybe, that of an overweight house cat trying to pull itself onto the too-tall kitchen counter.  
“Graceful,” you remarked, handing him the coat.   
“Fuck you,” he replied eloquently. You just smirked. He aggressively pulled on the coat, sighing a little at the warmth. It was comically big on his small, slight figure.   
“You look like an under stuffed burrito,” you said, leaning back a little. He just shivered at you. There was a lingering, comfortable silence, and he slowly, awkwardly shuffled into your side. You put your arm around his shoulder, leaning your head on his cold, wet hair. 

They started hibernating on Saturday, making this your last visit. 

These dates were always unpredictable. Sometimes you talked non-stop, sometimes you did nothing but make out. Sometimes you were slinging insults like stones, sometimes you were both only semi-ironically sappy with each other. And sometimes it was like this; you both just sat and watched the sun go down in each others arms. Literally any time you were around John could be considered the highlight of your day, but you’re pretty sure that these moments are your favourites. 

However, it doesn’t last long. You’re probably only there for ten, fifteen minutes when you hear thunder. You both turn and look, and a storm the size of New Mexico’s brewing.   
“You should probably go home,” John suggests. You weigh up your options and decide against it.  
“Nah. Wind’s not coming this way,” you said definitively, going back to watch the sun dip below the water.   
“No, no I’m pretty sure the storm’s coming this way,” John said, glancing over to you.   
“No way. Totally blowing the other direction,” you said, liking to be right.   
“Dave, it’s gonna be here pretty soon,” he said, KNOWING he was right. You two argued about whether or not the storm would reach you for too long, and by the time John won, it was nearly on top of you.   
“Dave, just go home! Winter storms are SUPER bad!” he begged, shrugging off his jacket. The wind was whipping something fierce, and you noticed that you’d drifted significantly off course.  
“Fine. Fine. I guess this is good bye,” you grumbled. He sighed, placing his hands on your cheeks. You looked pointedly at the ground, intent on sulking about this.   
“Dave. Don’t die just cause you wanna spend more time with me, okay?” You glanced up, looking at his adorable, goofy face. You sighed, giving in.   
“Anything for my own personal fish dork,” you said, resignedly patting his cheek. He scoffed.   
“I’m not the fish dork, YOU’RE the fish dork!” he said, slipping over the edge.   
“No YOU are,” you called after him, but he was gone. You huffed, watching the ripples in the darkening water. A very bright flash of lightning followed almost instantly by a boom of thunder brought you back to your senses. You started the motor, deciding to just get to shore and worry about returning the dingy later. You skipped back over the water, over the growing whitecaps and through the roaring wind. A light rain began to fall. 

It briefly occurred to you that staying out this late was a bad idea. 

Suddenly, you realised there was a shadow in the water swimming next to you, a vaguely John-shaped shadow. Without thinking, you cut the engine to let him catch up. Why the Hell did he come back? Why the hell didn’t he just say or do whatever it was he wanted to say or do during the allocated date time? You hoped nothing bad had happened in the space of three minutes. 

And your hopes were for nothing. 

While you were still trying to figure out what John wanted from you, cold hands leapt out of the water and grabbed the front of your shirt. And before you could figure out why the fuck John would do that, they were pulling you into the water. 

The water was freezing cold. 

You gasped at the sudden cold, which meant you had a mouthful of cold ass sea water. Which meant you had to cough it up. Which meant you’d used up a lot of air. Har har, John. Very funny. You resolved not to miss him for the next four months. You kicked up, trying to get back to the surface. And you couldn’t. You tried to pry the hands from your shirt, and you couldn’t. It took you a long time to work out that it wasn’t John. It wasn’t a prank. You remembered John talking about the war on humans, about the drownings and shit. It took you a while to realise you were getting dragged downwards, going further and further away from the surface.

Once you put all the pieces together, you’d figured that you were probably going to die. 

You didn’t have much time to panic over that before everything went muted, limp, and dark. 

"......"  
"......"  
“..a...” Was someone saying something? You couldn’t tell. Your head felt like it was lined with fuzz and filled with bees.   
“..av...” You just shut it out, shutting out the howling wind and the water hitting your face like tiny rocks.   
“..ave.”   
“Dave...”   
“Dave...” Dave? Who the fuck was Dave? He must be important.   
“Dave?” Were you Dave? Yeah, yeah that’s right. You were Dave. How’d you forget that?   
“DAVE!” 

Suddenly the fuzz cleared and you snapped your eyes open, coughing up the remaining water that was sitting comfortably in your lungs. You looked around, and all you could see was water. Was the endless ocean, and ten foot waves. The only thing that punctured the infinite, tessellating pattern was John. 

And shit, he looked terrified. 

His hands were hooked under your armpits, holding you afloat and trying desperately to keep your head above the water. You grabbed onto his shoulders, re-registering how small they were, how very slight and slim. You registered that he was the only thing separating you from the endless deep. 

The ocean is hella big, and that suddenly terrified you. 

You think it also suddenly terrified him. 

“Are you alright?” he yelled above the roar, over and over again. You nodded unconvincingly.   
“What the fuck happened?” was all you could manage. John started to answer, but it all got lost in the wind and a wave that towered over you both. It crashed down, ripping you two apart and you were spinning and tumbling and losing all sense of direction. Were you going up? Down? There was no way of telling. You were drowning all over again and it was the most traumatizing experience of your life. And then there was an arm around your chest yanking you what felt was sideways, and then you were back in the freezing air, gasping for breath.   
“I’m going to die,” you murmured, “I’m going to die.”  
“Shhhh,” was all the reply you got, John whispering into your ear. You both bobbed and rolled with the waves, John keeping you up. 

You leant against him weakly, drawing heavy breaths from the stiff, brittle air. You’d never known John to feel so large, so sturdy. He was your only anchor, and you were going to cling to him for dear life. 

“Can you swim?” he asked finally. Under literally any other circumstances, maybe. But you shook your head lamely, letting it flop about. You knew you should at least try, get some circulation flowing. Stop you from getting hypothermia and dying. But you couldn’t. 

You were too scared. 

So he coddled you, shifting around awkwardly so that your arms were locked around his neck in a strange, piggy-back type of maneuver. You rested your head against his shoulder, blocking out everything except John. It was only then you realised you’d lost your glasses in the middle of all that. Damn. 

John started swimming, holding on to you with both hands so you didn’t slip off into the water, which was very possible. You breathed heavily into his skin, the cold spreading through your body like a disease. Your toes were completely numb, you couldn’t feel your fingers. There were pin pricks on your face. Lightning split the sky almost exactly as thunder cracked in your ears. It was a big ass storm. You should have gone home earlier.   
“We’re gonna die,” you would mutter occasionally, “we’re gonna get hypothermia and drown.”   
“Shhhh,” John would always reply, “we’re gonna be fine. Pinky promise!” It didn’t matter how quietly you said it. John always heard. 

Since that day, you have taken every single promise John ever made very seriously. 

Because after a day or a year or a decade, you saw the thin orange haze of street lamps through the sheet of rain. You nearly cried. Nearly. You were too cool to actually cry. So you laughed instead. You laughed through the cold and the pain and the fear, and you didn’t stop laughing until you were on the shore, numb fingers grabbing clumps of wet sand. You were alive. You were alive! You were a-fucking-live and you were going to continue being a-fucking-live. You turned to look at John, who was watching you carefully. You toned it down, your huge smile fading into a smirk. The storm was starting to die down a little. Smaller waves, less wind, the rain fell in fat drops straight down.  
“Thanks,” was all you could croak out. He forced a smile.   
“No problem! These are yours,” he said, producing your shades from god knows where. You practically snatched them, pulling John into a bone crushing hug. You were both alive and you were relieved. You nearly cried again. But you were too cool for that.   
“I love you,” you said over and over, “I love you. I fucking love you.”   
“Love you too,” he said, patting your back. After forever, you pulled away, watching his face in the dark. His eyes seemed so...sad. 

You realised with a sinking feeling that he was still terrified. 

You heard yourself ask ‘what’s wrong?, your insides already stewing with worry and now that the adrenaline was gone, you were freezing cold.   
“Dave,” he said quietly, “The uh, the other mer-guy. The one who tried to drown you?” You nodded, not quite understanding where he was going with this.   
“He saw me save you,” he said, voice raspy, “he knows I’m...” he trailed off. He didn’t need to finish. He knew John was a human sympathiser. He knew John was fraternising with the enemy.

Mermaids who fraternized with the enemy were banished. And more than often, died within the week. 

“God,” you said, exhaling heavily, “God John, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” You both sat in silence, shivering on the dense sand. Your hand found his in the dark, and you squeezed it in what you hoped was a sympathetic way.   
“It’ll be okay though,” he said, hopefully, “I mean, 'cause you’ll help me.” What the fuck did he mean by that? It took you too long to work it out. Most mermaids died because they couldn’t figure out how to walk or get food or risk asses a situation and got stabbed in back alleys. But most mermaids didn’t have a (hot as fuck, if you did say so yourself) human boyfriend. You clearly spent too long figuring out your revelation because John looked terribly uncertain.   
“You WILL help me, right?” he asked, suddenly sounding completely defeated.   
“Course man,” you said, putting your hand on his shoulder, “You saved my fucking life. I owe you a solid.” He cracked half a smile, and let out a shaky breath.   
“So,” he said, clearing his throat.   
“See you here tomorrow,” you said. The words were heavy and sat in the sand like weights. He just nodded. Gently, you took his face in your hands, tilting it towards you, and planted a soft kiss on the middle of his forehead.   
“Bye,” you said into his forehead.   
 “Bye,” he said at the sand. 

You both stayed like that until your teeth started chattering, and John ordered you home to have a hot bath.  


	9. And So Were You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yaaaaay second last chapter the circle of stupidity is (nearly) complete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay. there's a bonus fluff chapter after this so stay tuned also check to John's POV

You slogged back to capmus, dragged your numb, heavy body up the rocks, shivered into your room and threw yourself in the shower with all your clothes still on. The water was hot. The water was scaldingly, wonderfully, painfully hot. You peeled the salty clothes off your skin, tried to get the sand out of your fingernails, and basked in the heat. 

But all you could think about was John. 

He said that they had anesthesia, so it wouldn’t be TOO bad, right? And it would be sterile, so he wouldn’t get sick, right? And they’d take him to the shore at least so he wasn’t bobbing around in the ocean alone, right? John would be fine. 

You dragged yourself out of the shower when the water started getting cold again, pulling on your pajamas and wrapping yourself up in the thick blanket. What were you going to do with John once he was here? Just hole him up in your dorm while you were at class? How the hell were you gonna introduce him to your friends? They KNEW you lived alone, and you were certain someone would notice this random, slightly paraplegic kid kicking around campus, not going to any classes and not having a student ID. Maybe you could get him back home to Bro, maybe you could just keep him out of the way until you got your own digs. That added the question of how the fuck he was gonna get a job, this nobody kid from nowhere. Maybe Bro could hire him? Maybe Drik could put in a good word at the aquarium, though you doubted how much stock they would put in Dirk’s word. 

You sighed, settling back into the warm pillow and the warm blanket. You could worry about all that later. Deciding that you COULDN’T worry about all that later, you swung yourself out of bed, keeping the blanket pulled tight around your shoulders. You grabbed a piece of paper and wrote out your master plan for keeping John safe; 

Step 1) Get him the fuck out of the cold.  
Step 2) Buy him some decent ass clothes and propper glasses.  
Step 3) Get him a fucking job at the aquarium  
Step 4) Hide him from the campus staff by claiming that John’s ‘Staying the weekend’  
Step 5) Profit (in the form of blowjobs) 

You looked at your list proudly, nodding a bit before shuffling back to the bed and collapsing into sleep. 

You woke up slightly later than you should have, you fucking fell out of bed and sprinted to class, still in your baggy t-shirt and boxers that you slept in. You still managed to burst in the door while your teacher was on the first syllable of your last name. She glared at you, you started taking notes, and found yourself mostly absently doodling in the margin. It wasn’t an important lesson really, she was just going over the exam structure. You got your essay back. A respectable A-. You didn’t really care. 

Not having many classes, you decided to try and revise for the final. No John, no worries, no daydreams. You quickly realized this was a problem.

The great barrier reef (oh god who gives a fuck) is home to thousands of species of (Jesus this is boring no I can’t deal with this shit) completely unique (I have better things to do like fucking get John what if he’s already there maybe he’s there freezing) marine species. 

You almost instantly gave up. 

Instead, you decided to start cleaning up. Swallowing your sentiment, you gathered up the empty apple juice bottles and crammed them into the tiny bin you kept in the corner. They spilled over the edge, and you had to crush them so they’d at least be contained in one can. You picked up the clothes littered hap hazardously around your room and shoved them into the closet. While you were there, you pulled out the other, less warm blanket. Bro’d given it to you at christmas, claiming that over Skype chats, you’d said that being warm was the only thing you dreamed of. So all you needed was a blanket. You pulled that out, chucking it on the bed. Then you pulled out some clothes that were a little too small for you (you’d finished growing around freshman year), and would definitely be far too big on John. Eh. Beggars can’t be choosers. 

You waited until the sun finally started slipping below the horizon line like a poorly separated egg. You rolled a towel, the extra clothes and a flashlight up, scrambling down to the beach. You took a moment to appreciate the water. 

It was still, or more still than it had been the other day. Small waves ruffled the surface, and it lapped lazily at the shore. It was like the storm had taken all the energy out of the ocean, sapping it of any ability to be even vaguely formidable. You knew that somewhere in that endless, gaping expanse there was a city full of dicky mer-people. You knew that somewhere out there, your fish boyfriend was bobbing slowly towards the sunbathed shore. 

Or, he WAS your fish boyfriend. You guessed that now he was just a normal boyfriend. 

It was really weird to think that this had all sprung from you checking to make sure that a complete stranger wasn’t about to die on the shore. You and John had clicked so quickly it was just...bizarre. And yeah, you’d only been dating or whatever for a month, but you couldn’t really see yourself with anyone else. Plus he was about to become entirely dependent on you for life for about a month or so. That would probably put a lot of strain on your relationship. Whatever. You loved him. 

You loved him a lot. 

You glanced down the shore, and there he was. Face down in the sand, his thick black hair tousled over his head in a dejected sort of damp mess. You had an undeniable sense of deja vu. You started walking, then running, then sprinting over the loose sand. He was face down and he wasn’t moving why wasn’t he moving you didn’t come all this way for him to die now oh god oh god oh god oh god.

You dropped to your knees next to him, gently shaking his bear, freezing shoulder. You glanced down and noticed two things:  
1) He was completely naked  
2) Where his pale skin had melded into a scarred, palate of blue was gone. It was only scrawny, bruised, pale legs.  
You breathed out of your nose heavily, trying not to stare at his butt. Wake up, Strider, you're on the clock! You shook his shoulder again, slightly more forcefully.  
“John,” you said, voice hardly above a whisper, “c’mon, John. Hey. C’mon. Wake up.” He shifted in his sleep a little, and you let out a tiny sigh of relief. He wasn’t dead, but he was breathing in sand. You gently turned him over so he was on his back.  
“John,” you said more forcefully. His eyes slowly fluttered open, he coughed a little, and looked up at you. You were expecting tears, you were expecting fear, you were expecting anger or recognition or something. You were prepared for those. But you weren’t prepared for what you got. 

Nothing. 

He just looked so...broken. So defeated. He blinked at you slowly, and then exhaled heavily, slumping further into the sand.  
“C’mon, John,” you said after a long while, “we need to go. You'll catch a cold, get sick, not fun.” He nodded slowly, propping himself up on his elbows. He stared at his legs for a long while, and finally managed to stop after the sun had finally slipped completely below the endless blue expanse. You were cloaked in night, and the stars were starting to come out. You pointed it out absently. He looked up, and you caught the ghost of a smile on his face. You couldn’t help but smile back.  
“Okay, so on a scale of one to ten, how much do your legs hurt?” you asked finally. He grimaced.  
“Seven,” he said. You had no idea what the fuck that meant, but it was worth a shot.  
"Seven?" you repeated in mild disbelief.  
"They didn't use anaesthesia. They never do," he said, very factually. 

Oh fuck. Oh fuck no John didn't deserve this. He never deserved this. He wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you. 

 

“Think you could try walking?” you asked, standing up and pushing all those thoughts out of your mind. He hesitated, then nodded. You slowly pulled him to his feet, watching him wince as he put weight on them. He took a shaky, un-aided step forward and collapsed again, sinking back into the sand. You knelt down gently next to him, picking him back up and putting him back on his feet. You kept one of his arms slung around your shoulder, and you kept your arm around his waist. His bare, completely naked waist. You fished a pair of tracksuit pants out of the pile in the sand, where you'd carelessly dropped everything as soon as you'd seen John.  
“John,” you said slowly, “for the sake of my own mental health, please put on some pants.” He blinked at you, laughing a breathy, very small laugh.  
“Can’t do it myself,” he said. 

After a very awkward few moments that involved you both doing the strangest, most complicated maneuvers, John had pants on. You put the towel over his shoulders, handed him the flashlight with the orders 'make sure we don't fall', and you both lurched back to the dorm. 

Getting him up the rock face was a whole other challenge, and you gave up fairly quickly, just slinging him over your shoulder. The air was cold, John was wet, and you were both under dressed, so you kept him hanging on your shoulder in an attempt to speed up the process of getting back to the warmth of your room. 

You unlocked your door with some difficulty, shuffled in, hit the lights on, shut the door, and deposited John in the shower. He sat there, slumped against the side.  
“Pull off the pants, stay in here till the water gets cold,” you said, exasperated. He nodded, giving you the trousers and towel. You turned the water on, making it as hot as it would go. He hissed at first, but quickly learned to love the heat. You smirked, and went back to making your apartment habitable. 

By the time you’d collected some extra clothes (and added ‘teach how to walk’ to your master plan), John had dragged himself out of the shower, figured out how to turn off the water, and had propped himself up in the doorframe of the bathroom. You tossed him the pants, a shirt, a hoodie that was big on you, and a towel. It took him a long time to get it all sorted, but you figured it was for the best. You weren’t gonna be around to coddle John all day; he had to learn to do shit himself. By the time he’d gotten himself sorted, you’d managed to get some studying done. By the time you looked up, John was sprawled on the floor, his new legs unable to support his tiny, pale frame.  
“Need a hand?” you asked, trying not to laugh. He nodded pitifully. You picked him up, carrying him bridal style over to the bed. As soon as you sat down, John was squirming and maneuvering himself into an upright position, straddling you with his arms wrapped around your shoulders. You gave him a small smile, small and genuine, because you hadn’t seen John smile since you got him. It was scaring you. He was usually a grinning, giggling, dorky moron, calling you a dick and punching your shoulder every five minutes. 

He didn’t smile back, just pressed his forehead into your shoulder. You wrapped your arms around him, rubbing his back in small, slight circles. His breathing was heavy, but irregular. Short inhale, long exhale, short inhale, long exhale. It took you too long to work out he was trying desperately not to cry. You sighed.  
“You can cry if you want, John. I won’t mind,” you muttered. 

And he completely broke down. Sobbing against your shoulder, tears leaving a small wet patch on your shirt, fingernails digging into your back. You didn’t do anything. You just rubbed his back, rocking you both gently side to side. He cried for a long time, sobbing and choking and shaking against you. It broke your fucking heart. 

After a long time, he calmed down, pulling away slightly so he got a good look at your face. His eyes were puffy, his nose was bright red, but he did look a little better. It was better than nothing. He gently reached up to take off your glasses, and you didn’t mind. John probably deserved anything he asked for at this point. You brushed the tears off his face with your thumbs. He smiled a small, tiny little smile. You flashed a big toothy grin, and he was smiling like the dork he was in seconds.  
“There we go,” you said, “Patent Egderp smile.” He laughed a little.  
“When did I get the patent?” he asked, pressing his forehead to yours. You smirked.  
“I filed it yesterday. So yesterday,” you said.  
“Isn’t there a waiting period or something?”  
“Nah. Not for Dave Coolkid Strider.”  
“Bullshit. We BOTH know your middle name’s Maurice,” he laughed. You laughed back, and you slipped into a comfortable silence.

“So now what?” John asked quietly after a very long time.  
“Well, now I think we watch Con Air, eat something, and go to bed,” you said.  
“Okay, and after that?” he asked.  
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” you said slowly, “for now; Shitty movie.” You swiveled around slightly, untangling your various limbs from each other and laying John down on the bed. Reaching under the bed to access your secret stash, you managed to pull a bag of Doritos from seemingly nowhere.  
“Where’d you get that?” he asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.  
“You don’t need to know,” you said, handing him the bag turned off the lights, pulled out your laptop and opened the damn movie. You’d downloaded it specifically so you could watch it with John. You both settled down to watch the shitty movie, shoulder to shoulder.  
“Hey Dave?” he said, looking over at you.  
“Yeah?”  
“I kinda like being a human so far,” he said, nudging you, “I mean, I’m not cold, not wet, and I get to spend more time with you!” You felt your face go a little hot. Why were you blushing? There was no reason to blush. Okay, so maybe you forgot how much John genuinely liked you, so maybe you got hella embarrassed every time you were reminded that John really, really liked you.  
“You’re blushing,” John said, and you could hear the smirk in his voice.  
“Shuddup,” you said, turning to him. He grinned, you hit him on the shoulder lightly, and all was well. 

John managed to stay awake for the whole film, though you could hardly keep your eyes open. He’d shake you when one of his favourite scenes was on (so every fifteen minutes), but you weren’t paying attention. The words just sorta turned to mush in your ears, loosing meaning and becoming nothing more than background noise. You were exhausted, and you weren’t sure how the fuck John was managing to stay so fucking perky. He insisted on watching the credits roll. You gave up trying to stay awake, dozing off with your arms loosely circled around John. 

You woke up later, still in pitch black, with the dying, desperate need to piss. John was snuggled up against you, his face pressed into the crook of your neck. It was adorable, you didn’t really want to move, but you really, REALLY needed to piss. You pried yourself off John, replacing the empty spot with a pillow, Indiana Jones style. He shifted a little, and you congratulated yourself on having completed this completely pointless and gratuitous task. Smooth move Dave. By the time you got back, John had woken up, holding the pillow up questioningly  
“Didn’t wanna wake you,” you said simply, and crawled into bed next to him. He just sighed, snuggling back into your side.  
“Hey Dave?” he said, the words slurring with sleep.  
“Yeah?”  
“I love you,” he said, blinking up at you.  
“Love you too,” you said with half a smirk.  
“Love you more.”  
“Bullshit. Prove it.”  
“What do you mean ‘prove it’? I saved your life!” he said, sitting up in bed.  
“Well I saved yours. Twice,” you said, sitting up as well.  
“ONE of those times I wouldn’t have BEEN in if YOU had just gone home if I asked, so today doesn’t count,” he said, grinning.  
“Wow okay. Rude. Be grateful for what you have, John.”  
“And what DO I have?” he asked, smiling a little. You leaned forward, pressing your forehead to his. He laughed a little.  
“Well, a hot as fuck boyfriend for one,” you said with a smirk.  
“Oh! You mean that guy I’m dating with a face like a lasagna?” he said, acting all innocent. It was adorable, but that was just fucking rude.  
“Fuck you man, I’m the shit,” you said, pulling away, “how the hell do you even know what lasagna looks like?”  
“It was in like, three of the movies you made me watch,” he said, taking your hands in a weird sort of apology, “besides, it’s only mean if it’s not true.”  
“Dude, c’mon. I don’t look like a fucking lasagna. I’m a work of art.”  
“But you do! I mean, the greasy, pale face, you’re always red, it’s a massive mess like 24/7.”  
“Ouch. Cut me deep, fishface.” He just laughed, bringing both of your hands to his chest.  
“That means you’re attracted to fish,” he said, sticking his tongue out. You didn’t really have a reply for that, so you kissed the smug smile off his dumb face. 

It was about 4 am by the time you both fell asleep, curled up against each other. There were little things about the way he slept that you hadn't noticed before; the little noises he made in his sleep, the way his face twitched with his dreams, the way he shifted slightly so he was pressed closer to your warmth. You were stuck with this idiot now, he was your responsibility. With anyone else, the prospect of having to look after him would have terrified you. But with John, you were alright with it. If John was happy, then so were you. And John seemed fairly happy

And so were you.


	10. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Round!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> idk the last chapter didn't really give me the sense of closure i think this piece needs so
> 
> PS: John's will also have a bonus round but it'll be different

"John," you said from the desk. No response. 

Since he'd moved in around a little less than a month ago, you'd had to do some rearranging. John could not STAND the mess you subconsciously made, so it was bye-bye piles and hello stacks. But it was more than that. For the first week, you'd both crammed yourselves into the bottom bunk, and you'd often end up on the floor. John didn't really want to sleep separate, like he was worried he'd wake up and you'd have abandoned him or something. Who knew really. You were 99% sure John didn't even know why. He had weird little quirks like that. And after hitting your head on the top bunk for the five hundredth time, a solution came to you. You detached the top bed, putting it down next to the bottom one, stitched the two bedsheets together and viola. Instant king sized bed. The same instant king sized bed that John was now sitting on, cross legged, a yellow note pad covered in his slanting, smudging, messy scribble perched on his knee. 

It took him about a week to walk for himself, and two weeks to walk like he hadn't just gotten mauled by a tiger. He'd managed to get a job at the aquarium easy enough, and you smuggled him into campus every night. He'd bought himself some (half) decent clothes, gotten better glasses (turns out he was wearing the wrong power. His eyes were even shittier than he'd thought), and made himself some new friends. 

He and Jade hit it off almost instantly, but would suspiciously shut up every time you walked in the room. You couldn't tell exactly what they were talking about, but you had a fairly good idea. Jake and John could talk movies for HOURS on end, it was more than a little disturbing. Dirk had already met the dweeb, but had to pretend to barely know him. Something about an old co-worker from the aquarium. You were honestly surprised at Dirk's ability to bullshit his way out of awkward situations, but then again, he was a senior. You don't go through college without bullshitting SOMETHING now and then. 

All in all, John's integration into society had gone exactly as planned. You were still waiting on the 'Thank You Blowjob', though. 

"John," you said again, swivelling around to look at him. He was still too busy scribbling. 

You weren't sure who's idea it was to start writing the book, whether it was John's, or yours, or whether it had just sorta happened. John had started writing a whole novel, about the mer-world and a young mermaid who tries to better her way of life by trusting humans, and then there's a whole romance thing and a war and in the end the HUMAN gets turned into a mermaid and they live happily ever after on a life on the lamb from dangerous other mermaids. 

It sounded like a shitty nine year old 'magic is real' book when he described it to you, but you'd secretly read a little. And is actually sounded cool as fuck. He hadn't told you that there was a whole sub-plot about the human (who turned out to be a girl. Lesbian mermaids. Awesome) getting molested and all sorts of fucked up in her home life. You didn't want to admit it, but this seemed like the kind of book you'd read. And you didn't even really read books. 

"John," you practically sang. You had one last final to study for, and then you were done. Woosh. Back to Texas for a nice, warm, excessively gay Christmas. Rose was coming over to stay, because her Mom and other Mom couldn't quite make it home in time for Christmas day. So Rose was bringing her girlfriend around to your place for a week. Kanaya's family was muslim, they didn't celebrate Christmas, but they were all for her spending one or two days with Rose. "Just as long as you don't come home and tell us you're a republican" her parents joked. You'd met them. They were cool. Then there was Bro, who had apparently recently hooked up with a hot piece of ass, and then there was you. 

Of course you were brining John. You told everyone he had some messy stuff going on with his home life, his Mom kicked him outta the house, his Dad was God knows where, and you were all he had left. Bro'd said 'sure' after hardly a second of consideration. 

"John."  
"Yeah?" he said, like he was snapping out of a trance.  
"Pay attention to me," you said, pouting. He laughed and went back to writing. You groaned, standing up and walking over to the bed.  
"John." He looked up, and you saw the panic flicker in his eyes. You'd often done this before.  
"Dave. No."  
"Pay attention to me." You put your knees on the bed.  
"Stop, Dave, you're acting like a five year old!" he said, starting to scramble away. But it was too late. You let your body flop on top of him, crushing him in a way that was very uncomfortable for both of you. Elbows dug into ribcages, chins dug into necks, huge weights cut off circulation to legs. He let out a strangled sigh, patting your back a little. 

"There, I'm paying attention to you," he said, his voice muffled by your shirt, "Are you gonna get off now?"  
"Nah." You pushed yourself up so you weren't crushing him anymore, and he swivelled around so he was on his back.  
"D'you think you could STOP doing that?" he asked, pouting. You smirked.  
"Nah. Besides, you do it too," you said. This was true, but John was much smaller and (let's be honest here) chose better times to just lie on you. Like when you were freaking out over studying or an hour before an exam, he'd just sort of subtly squish himself into your lap or on your back. You just collapsed onto him whenever.  
"Yeah, but you're more fat," he said with a grin, wrapping his arms around your neck.  
"More of me to love," you said, and you felt the smirk melt into a genuine smile.  
"Sure," he laughed. His laugh hadn't changed; it was still annoying, loud, high pitched and ridiculous. But you loved it. 

You loved him.

Sometimes it gave you a strange sort of ache in the middle of your chest, when you thought about how much you loved him. 

You pressed your lips against his, and he softened against you. His hands moved from the back of your neck to lazily nestle in your hair. You took your time, memorising the curve of his mouth, the way his buckteeth occasionally bumped against your lips and the way he'd mumble an embarrassed apology against you. Like you cared. You carefully ran your tongue over his chapped lips, memorising exactly how they felt, how they retained the salt from the sea. His hands traced curving, confused lines from your hair to your back, and slowly under your shirt. His (cold cold cold cold cold) hands gently (COLD COLD COLD COLD COLD) caressed your bear back. It was nice; it felt sweet and gentle and like home but fuck his hands were cold. You hissed a little, breaking off.  
"Your hands are like ice," you said accusingly. He laughed a little.  
"Some things never change, huh," he said with a grin. You rolled onto your side, lying next to him. You slowly wrapped your arms around him, scooping him up and holding him to your side.  
"I hope they don't," you muttered. You felt John nod. 

You both lay there for a while, sitting in the warm silence of each other.  
"I hope your brother likes me," he said after a while, and his sudden voice made you jump slightly.  
"Whether or not he likes you is irrelevant," you said, looking down at him, "I'm the one dating you. Not him." He let out a tiny, breathy laugh.  
"Still, he SHOULD like me. It's only proper," he grinned up at you, "We ARE married, after all."  
"Y'know, in all honesty, we might as well be," you said, laughing under your breath, "I mean, we live together, I take you on all sorts of romantic dates."  
"I took YOU on those," he corrected, "I paid cause I have the money." John was actually the only one making income between the two of you, so you came up with the where and he came up with the how. You two'd gone pretty much everywhere since he learned to walk. The petting zoo (three or four times, actually. John really REALLY liked the petting zoo), a sushi restaurant (he rolled his eyes at the raw fish. You laughed), a bakery, pizza joint, pretty much everywhere in a reasonable walking distance.  
"True enough," you said finally. He grinned triumphantly, and you both lapsed into silence.  
"Hey John?" you said after a while.  
"Yeah?"  
"I love you." You liked saying those words, you liked the way they felt on your lips and ears, you liked the truth it carried. And you always loved the response. 

"I love you too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your continued support. C:


End file.
